For years, leaders of the Evangelical Immigration Table have summed up the Bible’s view of immigration in three words: Welcome the stranger.
In Bible studies, sermons, videos and other resources, the coalition of denominational and nonprofit leaders has sought to remind churchgoers to see immigrants as their neighbors and people worthy of love and support. They’ve advocated for reforms that ensure America’s borders are secure, keep immigrant families intact and provide a pathway for undocumented immigrants to gain legal status.
Zach Szmara, an Indiana pastor and longtime supporter of EIT, said the Bible, not politics, should shape how evangelicals see the issue of immigration.
“Evangelicals may have room for disagreement, but we have to start with the fact that we are called to love and welcome immigrants, not view immigrants as threats or burdens,” Szmara said in a recent interview at a church conference in Chicago.
When Szmara founded Immigrant Connection, a church-based network of legal clinics that assist immigrants, in 2014, some churches wanted to get involved, others said it was a good idea, and there was little resistance, he said.
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Now, he said, critics treat his work as anathema and ask him if he’s lost his faith.
Support for immigration reform has become a flashpoint among evangelicals in recent years. Last fall, the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, broke ties with EIT, due in part to pushback in the denomination that the group had become too liberal on immigration.
The break was notable because Richard Land, a legendary SBC figure who led the ERLC for decades, had been one of EIT’s founders and had long promoted immigration reform. That split highlights tensions among evangelicals over immigration that have grown during the Trump era of mass deportations — including in Minneapolis, the current epicenter of immigration enforcement.
Public polling shows that evangelicals, in general, support reforms that would lead to secure borders and provide legal pathways to citizenship. But a 2025 study from Lifeway Research, an evangelical firm, showed evangelicals are deeply divided in how they view immigrants. According to the study, 44% of evangelicals said they see recent immigrants as a drain on the country’s resources, while 43% see those immigrants as a threat to the safety of Americans. Over a third (37%) said Christians have an opportunity to show love to immigrants, while the same percentage said recent immigrants are a threat to law and order. Most (80%) wanted Congress to pass immigration reforms last year.
EIT’s members include prominent organizations like World Relief, an evangelical humanitarian group that resettles refugees, and the National Association of Evangelicals. Meanwhile, critics argue that Christians are called to love immigrants but that call to compassion and love has been misused.
“What we’re learning now is that illegal immigration is not compassionate. In fact, it’s not only bad for Americans, but it’s bad for people who are migrating illegally,” said the Rev. Willy Rice, a Florida pastor who is running for SBC president, during a recent podcast from the Center for Baptist Leadership, a group that believes the SBC and other evangelical groups have become too liberal.
Carl Nelson, president of Transform Minnesota, an evangelical church network, said he’s seen support for ministry to immigrants and refugees decline in recent years. “I see a moving away from being generally compassionate and favorable towards immigration — immigration that’s done lawfully and orderly, and particularly refugee resettlement — towards much, much more suspicion and resistance,” he said.
Within Transform Minnesota’s network is Arrive Ministries, a Minneapolis-area refugee resettlement agency affiliated with World Relief. Nelson said that to outsiders, the Twin Cities may look chaotic, while inside the cities, people are worried about their neighbors.
“The dissonance between those two viewpoints, I think, has deepened,” he said, adding that he also sees a divide between Christians in rural areas and those in urban areas.
Nelson said he has heard some Christians talk about what’s known as the “sin of empathy,” which views having compassion for others as suspect. That suspicion is meant to put a firewall between compassion and action, he said. As an evangelical, he said he was raised to believe that the role of the church is to be salt and light in the world, a reference to the Sermon on the Mount, a well-known New Testament passage.
Evangelical responses to immigrants and refugees vary even within the same church. For example, while one of the pastors at Cities Church, a St. Paul Southern Baptist congregation targeted by activists, works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that church has also been involved in welcoming refugees, Nelson said.
Several organizers of a protest at the church were arrested for disrupting the worship service earlier this month. On Friday (Jan. 30), journalist Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and another independent journalist, who livestreamed the protest, were arrested in connection with it.
Youth from Cities Church have volunteered with Arrive, and some church members signed on to a 2017 EIT letter promoting immigration reform. Last year, a pastor at Cities Church used the idea of refugee resettlement to talk about the way that Christians will be welcomed by Jesus into heaven.
“It’s like a refugee getting the exciting news from Arrive Ministries saying, ‘We’ve got a placement for you. It’s been secured. There’s a home here reserved for you,’” Cities Church pastor Max Kozak told worshippers in May 2025.
A spokesman for lawyers representing Cities Church said the congregation has no official ties to Arrive Ministries and has not given any money to the ministry.
“The church is still prayerfully exploring next steps following the Jan. 18 disruption of its worship service and is thankful that the Department of Justice has responded,” a spokesman said, before news broke about the arrests of journalists.
Eric Teetsel, CEO of the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit that seeks to “renew a consensus of America as a nation under God,” said evangelical leaders focused on issues like immigration because those issues were socially acceptable, but they aren’t the issues that matter most to the average evangelical sitting in the pews. Those folks care about religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and in what he called “traditional marriage.”
“Those were ignored and downplayed, and they ought not have been,” he said in an interview last year. Teetsel said that evangelicals want their leaders to focus on issues that the Bible is clear about, rather than issues like immigration, where Christians can disagree. “It’s my contention that there is very little in Scripture that guides us towards immigration and border security policy in the 21st century,” he said.
He accused Democrats of defying the Bible’s beliefs, while evangelical leaders stood idly by and focused on other issues. “These so-called evangelical institutions that do public policy are focusing their scarce resources on a question like immigration and border policy, rather than these more foundational, significant and clear issues of life, marriage and religious freedom,” he said.
Outside Chicago though, evangelicals have been involved in protesting against ICE, including taking part in efforts to track federal agents’ movements and in protests at an ICE detention center.
The Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has also affected evangelical churches where immigrants make up a large percentage of congregants, including Southern Baptist churches in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“There are Hispanic churches that are not meeting right now because they are afraid of what’s happening in our part of the world, in part, because of the interaction between the federal government and the state government,” Trey Turner, executive director of the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, said recently.
Some of the current debates about immigration have made evangelicals wary of ministry to immigrants, which Szmara said is unfortunate. “I think we have to remind the church sometimes, when you love an immigrant, regardless of their status, you know you’re not breaking the law,” he said.
Carrie Afanador, a former teacher who lives in Boone, North Carolina, said that in her part of the country, many immigrants work in agriculture and construction, but there’s not much interaction between them and long-time residents. Frustrated that there were few immigration attorneys in Western North Carolina, Afanador started training with a Department of Justice program that allows nonprofits to set up legal clinics to assist immigrants.
“I tried to talk a bunch of people into doing it, and nobody would do it,” she said. “So I got mad, and was like, ‘Fine, I’ll just do it.’”
She eventually joined the staff of Immigrant Connection, Szmara’s church-based effort. Afanador said one of the most important things that evangelical churches can do is to take care of their immigrant neighbors.
“I always ask people, how can you check on immigrants that you already know and make sure they have what they need?” she said.
Bob Smietana is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
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15 Responses
Anybody who wants to interpret the Bible to mean open all the floodgates and let people just pour in and let’s get more trillions added to our debt so we can take care of them while barely doing anything for Americans first please provide your name and address. I will be happy to send them your way and help with your money. Thanks to newscrum and Walz and deblasio billions have been abused for people other than Americans and no accountability. As for what the Bible says? Well since everyone can create their own version of what the Bible says then it’s whatever you want. And spare me replying with scripture. Thanks to the evangelicals of the 20th and 21st century I too can take EVERY scripture and create my own little “ and the lord said” answers.
I would enjoy reading the sayings of LORD JESUS that support your stance.
Very sad you pretend to just say Jesus loves us all and we should let everyone pour into our country. They say SSA will run out of money by 2033. Anybody talk about welfare running out of money. Don’t be so naive pretending to be a good loving Christian when I doubt you’re willing to put your family at risk. But hey if it helps you sleep at night, then wonderful.
“Jesus loves us all and we should let everyone pour into our country.” I read Jon’s comment multiple times and didn’t see this. Where and when was this said?
Making assumptions about the stances of others is feeding divisiveness.
I had never heard of this fellow Teetsel before, or his outfit. A quick romp through Wikipedia however easily shows that this group was founded by the infamous Russell Vought, which probably should be noted in any further stories including this group.
Thanks for your enlightening comment about Russell Vought, Director of the O.M.B. (Federal Office of Management and Budget). Vought is often vilified (with an overabundance of hyperbole and/or dubious embellishments) by a host of leftist media outlets merely for believing in a strong but limited government and for his conservative values. He hails from Connecticut, where his father was an electrician and his mother a school teacher. Not exactly the product of political elitists. As far as I can tell he is implementing what the overwhelming majority of voters wanted in the 2024 election. Should I ever have the pleasure of meeting him, I’m likely to say “keep up the good work”.
Pastor Szmara can love the immigrants both legal and illegal and he can encourage and love illegal immigrants to self deport or if they are also criminals to turn themselves in. Would you agree that is being kind and loving as well?
America has a history of welcoming immigrants. 80 to 100 years ago most immigrants came to America for the freedom and opportunity she offered. The only “welfare” that existed is what could be found from churches and benevolent people and organizations willing to help. Often that help came from family members or “head of household” who came in advance to establish an economic foothold. Fast forward past the FDR and LBJ administrations and what you have is the “huddled masses” coming for the government handouts. When these modern immigrants enter illegally and then commit serious crimes I don’t see any biblical basis for continuing to welcome them. I also see it as un-biblical to advocate for criminals while ignoring their victims. If a person enters America illegally (without seeking AND receiving legal assylum to avoid VALID persecution) they have demonstrated that they lack the moral character that our sovereign nation requires. Even more so if they commit more crimes OR enable those who do.
I have a HUGE problem with non-citizens registering to vote or anyone who advocates they should be allowed to vote. Additionally, I believe that any LEGAL immigrant who violates our laws should also be deported. We have enough criminals of our own without having to import more.
You do understand that it takes time for their asylum request to be processed right? And in the meantime many of those illegals are given instructions and requirements to report in to the federal immigration magistrate regularly, which they do so. But when they do so, they are arrested and detained by ICE thugs for following the law and instructions of the immigration judge. Second, people are allowed to file asylum claims and get a hearing. PERIOD. That pesky thing in the Constitution known as DUE PROCESS. It is up to the immigration judge to determine if the claim is bogus or not. But until that determination is made, they are in a holding pattern and have to check in regularly. But that does NOT mean they are to be scooped by ICE thugs eager to make their monthly quota. But as long as they get their quote of 3000 per day, that doesn’t matter right?
As for legal immigrants being deported for crimes, then maybe Melania Trump should be stripped of her citizenship and deported since there is a body of evidence she worked under the table while she was on a tourist visa to the US.
I don’t give a **** about whether it is biblical or not. But the Constitution is the SUPREME Law of the Land, and I see ICE, Trump, and his administration violating it regularly to the thunderous applause of people like you and others on this forum.
I appreciate this perspective as it discusses how immigration (including who immigrated, why and how) and “welfare” (including sources and who qualifies) has evolved throughout our nation’s history. Both will continue to do so for a variety of reasons that do not exist in a vacuum. This evolution has also led to shifts in policy (some of it anchored in numerous “isms” that go against our founding principles) and attitudes (many anchored in the same listed above).
However you lost me at how those here illegally “have demonstrated that they lack the moral character that our sovereign nation requires.” We even have elected officials that repeatedly demonstrate their own lack of moral character. This sort of hypocrisy – intentional or not – illustrates why many look at Americans sideways. We stand ready to be the moral police of the globe when our own backyard is mucked up. (What’s that verse about removing the plank in our own eye??)
Perhaps we should start requiring this of our own citizens before condescendingly judging and demanding it of others.
“Welcome the stranger”
For those who wish to push back on this, be mindful that US policies over many many decades has been to create degrees of political, economic & social disfuntion & disunity in South American nations for the purpose of maintaining US economic & military hegemony. All of which impinged on faith communities & churches in SA – Brothers & Sisters in Christ. US Business & money of course exploited all this to attain cheap Labor. Nothing happens in a vacuum so think critically if you can’t think spiritually. 🤔
In Genesis chapter 11 we see it was God who divided us up into different countries with different languages , seemingly as a way to contain evil .
Now He has changed His mind here at the Endtimes ?
Going thru the Old Testament , I see repeatedly that part of the judgements against the rebellious was to give their land to foreigners .
Is Donald Trump’s immigration policies really a reprieve from God’s judgement ?
In Revelations 21 we get a hint of “what would Jesus do?” .
When He comes to rule the world for 1000 years He will do so behind a wall :
“It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates”
Revelations 21:12
And He understands we live in a fallen world and will definitely keep the riff-raff out :
“Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful ”
Revelations 21:25
Jesus did say “Go out into all the world” not bring the world to you .
Sometimes it’s really hard to argue with Roman Catholics that say people shouldn’t interpret the bible for themselves. The explicitly defined “greatest commandment”, the governing principle, to treat others as you would want to be treated, is not trumped by anecdotal, superficial parallels we may wish to import to a passage’s meaning. If any of us came to a place where we felt the US was unsafe for our family, and hoped to find refuge elsewhere, how would we want to be treated? At a minimum, we would hope the citizens would not assume anything about our motives or what we should have done without hearing our story. And we certainly wouldn’t want our desperate situation to turn our families into political scapegoats, or to be bracketed with rapists and drug dealers. The politics are understandably messy. But how is it the church’s job to point the finger at illegal immigrants and prejudge their situations without knowing their stories? That’s certainly not how I would wish to be treated if the shoe was on the other foot. If we think due process isn’t expedient, we or our children may very well reap what we’ve sown done the road in a country that loses its ideals.
Loren Martin:
Our country is founded on the Rule of Law. It may be tough to hear, but that’s the reality. This means we work within the law to help people, not outside the law. If Jesus could respect the Roman law while helping people, we can certainly emulate his example.
The rule of law also means that Due Process be followed, which is something ICE, Trump, and Noem apparently ignored quite often in their so-called crackdown of the “worst of the worst”, which was a lie. Something border czar Tom Homan recently tacitly acknowledged that previous enforcement operations had been indiscriminate in nature. That confirmed that the quota of 3000 per day was just that, Due Process be damned or targeting those “worst of the worst” folks checking into federal immigration courts as required by law.
Have some salt with the shoe leather, it helps with the taste.